1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to ship operations and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for detecting and reporting ship operating status and performance. Still more particularly, the present disclosure provides a method and apparatus for collecting and communicating important information about ships and the voyage environments during operation at sea.
2. Background
Commercial or merchant vessels carry cargo, goods, passengers, and/or materials from one port to another. Commercial vessels may include, for example, general cargo ships, container ships, bulk carriers, tankers, ferries and cruise ships, and special-purpose ships. In 2009, over 50,000 commercial vessels were in operation globally. Ship owners may own several or hundreds of commercial vessels, comprising a fleet. Individual vessels or entire fleets may be operated by the ship owners themselves, or chartered by another company, also known as the charterer. Agreements between the ship owner and a charterer are known as charter party agreements. The agreements specify, among other things, the operating status parameters, including fuel efficiency and performance that are guaranteed by the ship owner to the charterer.
Issues may occur while a vessel is at sea that affect the vessel's operational status. Operational safety, fuel efficiency, speed capacity, expected arrival time at port, vessel maintenance needs, and other factors can be affected by these issues. These types of issues may affect the crew, cargo, and/or the vessel itself, and increase transportation costs. Communication between a vessel and a remote site, such as a shore-side office, is limited when the vessel is at sea due to a lack of available communication systems and/or the high cost of air time using communication systems that are currently available. This limits both the amount and frequency of communication between vessels at sea and shore-side operations.
On many vessels, to control communication cost, electronic data is collected onboard the vessel, and then transmitted as a single package a few times daily. The content of these packages, and the period of their transmission, cannot be controlled or initiated by a remote site. In many cases, communication is further restricted by an officer on the ship. Electronic data is received by the vessel in a similar manner. Much of the information collected while a vessel is at sea is only available to a shore-side office once the vessel reaches a port and the information is manually transferred to a computer or personnel on shore using a shore-side communication system or direct human intervention.
In making a voyage, it is desirable to make the voyage in a manner that enhances safety, efficiency, lower fuel consumption, and on-time arrival, while reducing emissions such as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that may contribute to climate change. Ship owners, operators, fleet managers, and port authorities desire up-to-date information from their vessels for asset management, tracking, and verification of ship operational status and arrival times. Information concerning ship position, speed, and environmental conditions is also useful for purposes of performance validation in charter party arbitration.
Some of the information necessary to analyze vessel operating performance in a meaningful way is not readily available for acquisition and transmission to a remote site where resources are available to conduct such analysis. This may include navigation and environmental data that is restricted for security reasons to the vessel's navigation and operational control systems. Some vessels may not be equipped with sensors needed to acquire certain critical data.
It is desirable to be able to send or receive critical information in near real-time from the remote site to or from the vessel that contains advice or recommendations concerning special events or on procedural or operational changes that would improve the operational status of the vessel. It is desirable that these transmissions or requests for information may be initiated from the remote site or the vessel itself.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that addresses one or more of the issues discussed above.